The cops in the Sticks have grown Hi Tech

[SCPD]

Trenton Police Department began using MDC's today for Most Traffic and eventually most communications. Celeste is following suit. so are a few other smaller agencies in surrounding areas.

What's driven them to this? The radio communications are crap out here. Fannin Co. which is P25 capable restricts the use of Digital to Media Sensitive traffic only. And county units (SO) have the first priority. Many of the smaller PD's are often told by 9.00/hour dispatcher to stay off the radio while County units engage in high speed chases with cattle. Or the dispatcher needs to catch up on Soap Opera's. These smaller counties in rural Texas don't have but one repeater to operate All LE traffic on and the Smaller PD's see more activity than the SO and do inadvertently tie up the repeater.

Because of the availability of funds offered through DHS Grants, Larger COG's and Agencies are selling off older computers and other LE technology that these smaller departments are grabbing up quickly and at little expense. Slowly, these "small" PD's are acquiring better, more sophisticated communications technology and becoming much more self reliant not having to Depend on County Dispatchers or systems when needed.

So the next time you speed through parts of Fannin and Hunt counties, you less likely to get off with a warning because they can't run your 28 info due to busy repeaters Thanks to in-car MDC and T-LETS terminals.

While I applaud the new technology, I also curse it as the radio traffic from these smaller agencies will drop significantly meaning less for me to listen to.

 

[davidbond21]

While I applaud the new technology, I also curse it as the radio traffic from these smaller agencies will drop significantly meaning less for me to listen to.

This same thing is happening with DPS as well statewide. I hear less and less radio traffic all the time. And this is excluding the fact that their New Braunfels repeater(11A) has probably been keyed up less than a dozen times in the last 3 years(a different nearby repeater(21) handles much of the area's traffic, but still a great allocation of resources there :roll: ).

Even my local PD has increased the use of their MDTs lately it seems, even though they've had them for many years. Whereas previously when these officers wanted to share something private, they'd often I-Call one another and chat, but now more often than not(if they're in their vehicles) they'll just send MDT messages to one another instead, depriving me of what are sometimes depraved conversations.